It was over two years ago that as an
embryonic cohort we were gathered at ISMC for formal introductions to
the course of study ahead. The message, to be honest, was a bit
daunting. We were warned the Master of Arts (MA) would be very demanding
in all its aspects. This was necessary, we were told, given the
Institute's vision. A part of that vision was to approach the study of
Muslim cultures in order to support two arguments. The first is that the
cultural expressions of Muslim societies over time and space have been
and continue to be extremely diverse. Secondly, while many of the
expressions of Muslim cultures are particular, so much of it and the
processes that govern cultural production are also common to human
societies and world civilisations. As a student of an Institute
espousing these arguments and the approaches thereof, I felt both
trepidation and eagerness.

From our academic courses to cultural
excursions and from the Arabic language to the language of field work,
endeavours into each have illustrated that so many Muslim societies,
including their neighbours and predecessors, are so profoundly
interesting precisely because they are far from homogenous. And at the
same time, our in-depth study into one group of cultures exemplifies its
role and place as a part of world cultures.

From the different literary and diasporic
outputs of East Africa's coastal communities to variable anthropological
readings into Balinese culture and from divergent views on the impact
of ancient Mesopotamia on today's world religions to contesting
developmental and gendered perspectives useful to studying contemporary
societies, our courses revealed the diversity of cultures from within
while pointing to some of the common social, political, and economic
processes that underpin all cultural manifestations.

Our cultural trips ranged from visiting
museums and galleries in London to strolling through the suqs of Tunis;
from being inspired by century-old castles in Edinburgh to touring the
very modern Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris; these visits attested to
the multifarious ways in which Muslim and non-Muslim lifeways are
exhibited and studied.

And finally, perusing over the titles of our
dissertations also illuminates the mosaic of relevant themes of interest
in and for Muslim societies. Our areas of inquiry ranged from a
political and philosophical examination into the notion of freedom in
the late Qajar period of Iran to a contemporary and ethnographic case
study of ritual and religious practice at a shrine in Pakistan. Indeed,
while debating notions like freedom and introspections into religious
life are germane to Muslim contexts, they also underpin the perennial
efforts of scholarship into a countless number of other societies.

But equally instructive as these tangible
engagements with the components of the MA has been our own engagement
with each other, as a class of individuals from many parts of the world,
Muslim and otherwise, has been formative. From India to Indonesia, from
Northern Pakistan to its southern counterpart, from one end of the
Persian speaking world to the other, and from both sides of the
Canadian-US border, our own diversity serves as a microcosm to that of
the Muslim world and beyond. And our convergence at ISMC to study and
understand Muslim cultures also serves as an example of one of the
instrumental exercises that can translate diversity into the production
of something positive. Our divergent intellectual and cultural views
provided the background upon which new ideas, friendships, and
collaborations came to the fore. These rewards were not borne easily
however; at times, our engagements felt like conflicts. But then perhaps
such growing pains are necessary to the process of constructing new
possibilities from diverse beginnings, and from the important balance
that is to be made between the particularities of our selfhood and the
aspiration for coherence.

Today, as we proudly stand as AKU graduates,
find myself holding feelings nearly identical to those held some two
years ago. Trepidation, because we are now responsible to contribute to
the realisation of an important vision. Eagerness, because we have been
empowered to do so.​